State purges Independent Party of Florida over ‘technicality’

The Independent Party of Florida is no more, at least for now.

The party, founded in 1992, was stripped of its official status, because it didn’t use a certified public accountant to audit its finances in 2014.

Ernie Bach, chairman of the party based in Largo, vowed to reapply with the state Division of Elections and have its status returned. But even if that happens, the party will have to rebuild its base of more than 260,000 members entirely from scratch.

“This was a legal technicality,” Bach said. “Now all 260,000 have to reapply and 67 county superintendents of elections have to go through the process and time it takes to re-register everyone. It’s just a boondoggle, is what it is.”

There were 13,452 Independent Party members in Broward County before the 2016 presidential election, plus 25,120 in Palm Beach County and 14,796 in Miami-Dade County.

Some people think they’re registering as independent voters by picking the “Independent Party” when they sign up to vote, but they’re actually joining the party.

many people think of as independent is actually “no party affiliation” under Florida law. Statewide Florida has more than 3 million NPA voters, with 306,540 in Broward, 231,403 in Palm Beach County and 401,032 in MiamiDade County.

The Independent Party of Florida, which originally grew out of Ross Perot’s run for president in 1992, is a “middle of the road” party, Bach said. It most recently made headlines in Florida by trying to get Evan McMullin, an independent conservative presidential candidate, on the ballot in Florida. Gov. Rick Scott denied McMullin a spot, leading the party to ultimately endorse Hillary Clinton based on a survey of its members.

After receiving the party’s re